The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1887-04-21
BEECHER'S LAST WORDS.
An Article on Youthful Designations and
Their Effects-The Great Preach
er's Opinion On Danciug-A
Prophecy.

vious to his death. He had promised
that he would contribute an article to
the last number of the BrookL,n Mag
asiue under It's old name, and in ac-
cordance Herewith the paper given be-
low was written by him. 1t is proba-
bly, one of his latest, if not his last,
contribution to periodical literature !:
"Old age has the foundation of its
joy or its sorrow laid in youth. Every
stone laid in the foundation takes hold
of every stone in the wall up to the
very caves of the building; and every
deed, right or wrong, that transpires
in youth reaches forward, and has a
relation to all the afterpart of mans
life. A mans life is not like the con-
tiguous cells in bees honeycomb; it
is more like separate parts of a plant
which untolds out of itself, every part
bearing relation to all that antecede.
That which one does in youth is the
root, and all the afterparts, middle
age and old age, are the branches and
the fruits, whose character the root
will determine.
"Every man belongs to ali economy
in which he has a right to calculate,
or his friends for him, on eighty years
as a fair term of life. His body is
placed in a world adapted to nourish
and protect it. Nature is congenial.
There are elements enough of mischief
in it if man pleases to find them out.
A man can wear his body oat as
quickly as he pleases, destroy it if he
will; but, after all, the great laws OF
nature are nourishing laws, and, COM
prehensively regarded nature is the
universal nurse, the universal physician
of our race, guarding us against evil,
warning us of it by incipient pains,
setting up signals of danger-not out
wardly, but inwardly, and cautioning
us by sorrows and by pains for our
benefit. Every immoderate draft
which is made by the appetites and
passions is so much sent forward to be
cashed in old age. We may sin at
one end, but God takes it off at the
other. Every man has stored up for
him some eighty years, if he knows
how to keep them, and those eighty
years, like bank of deposit, are full
of treasures; but youth, through igno-
rance or through immoderate passions,
is wont continually to draw checks on
old age. Men do not suppose that
they are doing it, although told that
the wicked shall not live out halt their
days.
"Men are accustomed to look upon
the excesses of youth as something that
belongs to that time. They say that
of course the young, like colts unbrl-
died, will disport themselves. There
is no harm in colts disporting them
selves, but colt never gets drunk.
do not object to any amount OF gayetJ
or vivacity that lies within the bounds
of reason or of health; but | do rejec
and abhor, as worthy to be stigmatlzec
as dishonorable and unmanly, ever,
such course in youth as takes ava,
strength, vigor and purity from ole
age. do not believe that any maj
should take the candle of his old agt
and light it by the vices of his youth
Every man that transcends nature
laws in youth is taking beforehand
those treasures that are stored up TO
his old age; he is taking the food tha
should have been his sustenance IN olt
age, and exhausting it in riotous llvln!
in his youth. Mere gayety and exhll
aration are wholesome; they violate n
law, moral or physical.
81 do not object to mirth or gayety
but | do object to any mans making
an animal of himself by living for tn
qualification of his own animal pas
sions. People frequently think tha
to require, in the conduct of youth
that which we expect in later life, ha
something Of Puritanism in 1t. Me
have an IMPRESSION that youth is yer
much like wine, crude and inslpld un
til it has fermented; but when it ha
fermented, and thrown down the les:
and the scum has been drawn of, tn
great body between is sound an
wholesome, and beautiful. | am nc
: one that thinks SO. | think that yout
is the beginning of the plant life, an
that every wart or excresence IS
!, much enfeeblement of its frult-bearin
power. | do not believe that any ma
, is the better for having learned tt
whole career of drunkenness or OF lus
or the dallyings or indulgencies tn
belong to morbid life. A young ma
2 that has gone through these things ma
n be saved at last; but in after life ne h;
q not the sensibility, nor the purity, M
y the moral stamina that he ought to has
n He has gone through an experience b
:, for which his manhood would ha
;, been both stronger and nobler.
Ie thoroughly disbelieve that a man
a any better for having in his you
passed through an experience that q